Skulduggery 8: Building a Criminal Empire Read online

  Amazon doesn’t update readers when an author comes out with a new book anymore (they are no longer showing Also Boughts or sending out Author Follow emails), so join my Facebook Fan page (or search for my name on Facebook) if you want to know when my next book is coming out. If you don’t join my Facebook Fan page, you’ll never get alerted when my next book is out.

  Chapter 1

  I double-checked the locks on the front door of Osman’s bakery, but I only felt secure after I had also checked the window in the upstairs apartment and the locks on the back door.

  Normally, I would have trusted that my thief’s senses would alert me of any eavesdroppers outside, and even if they didn’t, I would have trusted that the magic Rainbow Keys in my pocket would have warned me. But I wasn’t about to have a normal conversation, so all my normal precautions needed to be doubled.

  After all, I might be the leader of my city’s Thief’s Guild now, but that didn’t mean that the elves couldn’t still accuse me of treason. And if they heard what I had planned, they would have no choice but to arrest me, so I didn’t want to take any chances.

  Once I had checked all the locks again and glanced into the shadows all around the bakery to make sure we were really alone, I returned to my friends in the dining area. Osman had closed up the bakery early so we could all meet in private, and it was the first time we had all been together in over two weeks.

  “Glad you all could make it,” I said as I sat down at the crowded table in between Cimarra and Dar. “We have a lot of plans to make, so I think we should get right down to it.”

  “But first, does everybody have enough coffee?” Osman asked, even though the middle of the table was loaded down with pastries, muffins, and enough fresh pots of coffee to refill everyone’s cups. “Ava, are you sure you don’t want any?”

  “I’m fine,” the blonde assassin said across the table from me. “I’d really just like to discuss our plans.”

  “Um, same,” Penny sighed beside the assassin. “Because I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like I’ve been running myself ragged for the past two weeks.”

  “Oh, yeah, because you’re the only one who’s been working their ass off,” Dar snickered.

  “If you’re talking about yourself, then, yeah,” the pixie thief replied. “I’ve seen you put away half a dozen scones just tonight, so if you’re trying to work that ass off, I think the scones might be counteracting that for you.”

  “You know good and well that’s not what I meant,” my halfling friend groaned.

  “Maybe we could circle back around to the point,” Cimarra said with a smile. “Unless anybody needs more food or drink?”

  “I guess I can wait until we’re finished,” Dar grumbled, “since apparently, I can’t eat anything without a whole goddamn commentary.”

  “You live a hard life, I know,” Penny laughed.

  “So what’s going on?” Selius asked as he leaned his forearms on the table.

  I was glad to see that the halfling kid had started to feel more confident around the others, but I guessed that it might have something to do with the fact that he had almost been beaten to death and survived to tell us about it. He was almost completely healed now, except for his ribs, but they would probably be sore for a while.

  “Aye, not that I’m not happy to see all yer faces,” Skam said from beside Selius, “but why exactly did ya want to see us all tonight, Wade?”

  “Well, it’s been two weeks since we first figured out how to use the portals,” I said and then swallowed a mouthful of my fragrant coffee.

  “You mean since you first figured it out,” Twila said.

  “Yeah, but I sure as shit couldn’t have done it without you,” I said with a smile. “But since it has been two weeks since then, I wanted to give you all an update on what we’ve gotten done and what we still have left to do, just so we’re all on the same page.”

  “Plus, Wade figured that it’d be easier for us to all get together and talk about it,” Penny said. “That way, we wouldn’t have to track you all down individually to tell you what’s going on.”

  “Exactly, especially since we don’t have that much time before we have to go back,” I said.

  “Alright, so tell us what’s going on,” Marver said from beside Osman. “You lot have been off in some shiny new city, right? What have you been up to for the last two weeks?”

  “Oh, you know,” I said with a grin. “Just expanding our business like usual.”

  “I don’t know if I’d say that it’s been like usual,” Penny said. “The Gold City is fucking wild, not like this dump.”

  “Careful, Penny,” Dar said. “Somebody might think that you don’t feel any pride toward your hometown.”

  “Oh, I’m plenty proud of where I came from,” the pixie thief replied with a toss of her bright red hair, “but I’m much more interested in where I’m going.”

  “You’re not the only one,” I laughed and then looked around the table at all my friends. “So, Penny’s right--”

  “Obviously,” the redhead sniffed.

  “The Gold City is fucking wild,” I continued. “Dar and I went through a couple of different portals first, just to get a feel for the different cities, but we decided that the Gold City would be the easiest place for us to expand our business first.”

  “And if we can expand our whiskey distribution there, then we can expand it anywhere,” Dar said.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “So for the last two weeks, I’ve been doing recon with Dar, Penny, Ava, Skam, and Twila.”

  “I think what we’ve been doing counts as a little more than recon,” Ava said.

  “Fair enough,” I laughed. “The main thing is that we’ve been trying to get a feel for the layout of the Gold City, plus a whole list of contacts that we can work with and ultimately try to distribute our whiskey through.”

  “And you’ve been setting up everything for distribution, too, right?” Cimarra asked.

  “Yes, that, too,” I replied. “We bought a warehouse in Dar’s name, and we’ve already put whiskey there, so it’s ready to move whenever we’re ready.”

  “Plus, we bought a wagon to do the actual distribution,” Penny said. “Since the Dwarves maintain them so thoroughly, the sewers won’t work in the Gold City for distribution, so we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Do you have any customers yet?” Osman asked.

  “We’ve already got three,” Dar said. “Like I said, we’ve been working our asses off.”

  “Yeah, but it’s fucking worth it,” I said with a smirk. “We have two small restaurants and a brothel selling whiskey for us now, and that’s just the beginning.”

  “Aye, if our numbers keep increasing, we might have to conscript a few of the lads down in the human district to help us move barrels through the portal,” Skam said. “Not that I can’t do it all myself, but it’ll be faster with a bit more muscle.”

  “Sorry I can’t help you more with that,” Selius said.

  “Nonsense,” the tattooed dwarf replied. “Who else would take care of our warehouse here? And of our favorite blue dragon? You’re needed here, lad.”

  “But don’t worry, Skam,” I said. “I’ll make sure you have some help once we start to store more product in the Gold City.”

  “I appreciate that, Wade,” Skam said as he settled back into his chair.

  “I don’t mean this in a bad way, and I certainly don’t mean any offense” Marver said, “but, ah, what exactly has Twila been doing there?”

  “What do you mean?” I growled.

  “Well,” the halfling chef continued, “I understand that Dar and Pe
nny are thieves, and Ava here is an assassin, so they know how to map out a city in their heads and pay attention to who’s important, that sort of thing. And I understand that Skam helps you move the barrels, but I’m afraid I just don’t understand what Twila’s role is.”

  “I’ve been helping make contacts,” the golden-haired halfie replied before I could. “Everyone’s always very eager to have me at a party, and no one thinks twice about spilling little tidbits and secrets to a halfie like me.”

  “We wouldn’t have made nearly as much progress as we have without Twila’s help,” I said. “People tend to underestimate her, and that's ultimately how she gets exactly what she needs.”

  “That sounds a lot like me,” Osman chimed in, “even though I’m not nearly as pretty as the lovely Madame Twila.”

  “That’s fair,” I laughed, “and that’s exactly why I need you and Marver here at the bakery. You have almost as many people come through these doors as Twila does at her dancehall, and that’s a lot of people to listen in on and get information from, and they never even know it.”

  “It’s a hard job, that’s for fucking sure,” Marver sighed. “I don’t know how you do it as well as you do, Twila.”

  “Practice,” the golden-haired halfie said with a shrug.

  “Don’t tell me you’d rather be making potato mash cookies for the dwarves now, would you?” Dar teased the halfling chef.

  “Ach, no, and don’t remind me,” Marver said. “I’d rather help Osman gather information and bake his pastries any day than make that nasty dwarven shit again.”

  “I’m not saying that we’ll never need you to run the catering company again,” I told the chef, “but right now, you’re more valuable to me here.”

  “I’m just happy to be valuable anywhere,” Marver said. “It’s hard out there for a crusty old chef like me.”

  “And for an ex-con like me,” Skam said. “Wade here is responsible for keeping all of us off the streets.”

  “Psh, Wade does a lot more than just that,” Penny said. “He’s making us all rich as kings. Have I shown you all my new daggers yet?”

  “Yes,” everyone around the table said at once.

  “Well, fuck me,” the pixie thief sighed. “I can’t help that I’m proud of my new weapons, can I?”

  “I’m glad,” I said with a smirk. “And I’m sure you’ll have a chance to use them one of these days, too.”

  “I hope so,” Penny said. “I mean, not that I-- no, I really do hope so. They’re just too pretty not to stab someone with. Ya know?”

  “We’ll find a good use for them,” Ava said with a smile. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  I had a feeling that the blonde assassin was even more eager than Penny was to use her new weapons, and I had no doubt that both my women would be able to put them to the test sooner or later.

  “So you have two restaurants and one brothel?” Cimarra asked. “Are you still putting caps on the number of drinks that your customers can sell?”

  “We are,” I replied. “So it’s still a two-drink limit for everybody, even though I’m not completely sure that it’s necessary.”

  “What do you mean?” Cimarra frowned. “You don’t think someone would run their mouths if they had more than two drinks?”

  “Oh, I definitely think that’s possible,” I said, “but the Gold City is different from this town.”

  “How so?” Osman asked.

  “Everyone’s a little more… relaxed,” I said. “Even the elves seem to care less about rules and regulations.”

  “Really?” Cimarra raised her eyebrows. “I can’t imagine a place where the elves don’t care about things like that.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that it’s a total free-for-all,” I said, “and that’s why we still need to be careful and put drink caps on our customers. But so far, it’s been a lot easier to move whiskey from our warehouse there to our clients.”

  “No one has stopped us,” Dar added. “We can just drive right down the main road with whiskey covered up in the back of our wagon, and there’s no dwarven guard around to stop us, and the elves all seem preoccupied with other things, so they don’t even look twice at us.”

  “It sounds like the perfect place to start your expansion,” Osman said.

  “That was the idea,” I snickered.

  “So it’s not that we don’t have to be worried about getting caught in the Gold City,” Penny said. “It’s just that our chances of getting caught seem a lot lower.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “We still have to make sure that we’re not followed, so no one discovers our warehouse and so no one discovers where the portal is that we use to enter the Gold City.”

  “Ugh, right?” Penny groaned. “Can you imagine how bad it would be if the elves found out about us, and then a whole troop of elven guards just waited for us on the other side of the portal?”

  “That would be a bad day,” I agreed, “and that’s exactly why we’ll never let that happen.”

  “So what needs to happen next?” Skam asked. “That’s why we’re all here, right?”

  “Right,” I replied. “We’re on a good track to distribute to the whole city, but we need more customers, and that means we need more contacts.”

  “So we need to meet more people, feel them out, and see if they would be open to selling whiskey for us, and then get it to them,” Penny said. “And not get caught in the meantime, of course.”

  “But it sounds like we’re already halfway there,” Selius said. “So can’t you just keep doing what you’ve been doing?”

  “We could,” I agreed, “but I want to move faster than we have been. I want to get as many customers as we can, and I want us to set things up in the Gold City so that when we leave it, it will just continue to earn us as much coin as possible.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Twila said with a smile.

  “But it’s not enough just to be rich,” I said. “I also want us to be as powerful as the elves-- and one day, I want us to be even more powerful.”

  “Do you mean that you think you can be more powerful than the guild leader of our city?” Skam asked.

  “I do,” I replied. “I like being the guild leader, but that’s nothing compared to what I have planned.”

  Do they know that you will one day be a king? the Rainbow Keys chimed suddenly inside my head. Do they know that you will one day be their king?

  I caught Ava’s eye across the table, and even though I knew that no one could hear the Rainbow Keys except for me, the blonde assassin smiled at me like she had heard them, anyway. Then again, I was pretty sure that Ava had believed that I would be a king one day even before she knew that was what the keys had told me.

  “This would all be so much easier if we had a middle man to go through,” Dar groaned. “You know, just someone who could arrange everything for us and set up meetings with contacts-- that kind of thing. Just so we wouldn’t have to do it all ourselves.”

  “You would be able to move on to other portals and other cities faster,” Cimarra sighed, “but how would you ever be able to trust someone that much?”

  “Yeah, because that’s worked out so well for us in the past,” I said with a smirk. “You know, because Hebal and Lobrem were both so helpful to us.”

  “I know, I know,” Dar sighed. “Between those two dwarves, that’s enough to make me never trust a middle man again.”

  “And that’s exactly why we’re going to do it all ourselves this time,” I said.

  “Well, I’m sure as shit glad that we don’t have to watch out for a dagger in our backs, at least not from some middle man asshole,” Penny said.

  “I know what you mean,” I agreed. “We might not have had much of a choice when we had to use Lobrem and Hebal, but now, we have options.”

  “Especially since no one knows who we are in the Gold City,” Penny said. “We can be whoever we want to be, and no one has any idea who we really are or where we’re really from.”

>   “Another perk of using the portals to travel,” I laughed. “The Gold City is a couple months’ of travel away from here by foot, and even though it’s faster for elves who can use magic or who can take the waterways, those options aren’t supposed to be available for us.”

  “If the elves haven’t figured out by now that you have magic of your own, then they’re even fucking stupider than I thought,” Ava said.

  “Well, lucky for us, the elves have their heads so far up their own asses that they haven’t figured anything out,” I said.

  “I mean, it’s true that the elves have their heads up their own asses and everything,” Twila said, “but it’s not just that Wade can use magic like some of the elves. Think about it-- how many elves even know about the existence of the portal room in the catacombs?”

  “I doubt any of them know about it at all,” Cimarra said. “If they did, it would be the most well-guarded place in the city, don’t you think?”

  “More like in the whole realm,” Penny said. “There’s no way the elves know about it.”

  “And that means we can use it however and whenever we want to,” I said.

  “Okay,” Skam said as he leaned forward and took a frosted lemon pastry from the tray in the middle of the table.

  “Okay, what?” Selius asked when the tattooed dwarf didn’t finish his thought.

  “Sorry,” Skam said through a mouthful of crumbs. “Osman, this shit is a goddamn distraction.”

  “Oh, I thought we tweaked that recipe,” the blue-skinned djinn said with a glance at Marver. “Is it that bad?”

  “He means it’s fucking perfect.” Marver rolled his eyes so hard that it looked like his bushy white eyebrows damn near swallowed them up. “He means it’s distracting because it’s good, not because it’s bad.”

  “Oh, my mistake,” Osman said as his cheeks flushed a deep shade of purple. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “Like you’ve ever made anything that hasn’t been fucking delicious,” Dar laughed. “Don’t be so modest, Osman.”

  “Thank you, my friends.” Osman put his hands together over his heart and gave a little bow.

  “You care to finish your thought now?” I grinned at Skam.